Saturday, September 7, 2013

Joseph Tame is probably the world's most well-recognized GPS runner. (GPS runner meaning he creates images out of his workouts' GPS coordinates.) He's definitely the most recognizable runner in his adopted hometown of Tokyo, where he can't hide his tallness or his Britishness. And he doesn't try to, either, opting for neon getups and wielding multiple iPhones on every run. For several years, he's livestreamed himself runnning the Tokyo Marathon with a show-stopping homemade contraption dubbed the iTame.

In 2011, soon after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, I flew out to meet him and we ran a ginormous heart around Tokyo, a runner's tribute to the city. (Check out the story published in Competitor Magazine!) Ginormous being about 50K, the biggest design he'd completed at that point.

Now Tame's outdone himself. To support his beloved city's Olympic bid, he plotted out and ran the Tokyo 2020 emblem, featuring 83 flower petals between 1.2 and 5 miles each for a grand total of about 240 miles. He finished the "running art" yesterday, and it's pretty freaking awesome. Check out Tame's account of the drawing here.

Monday, August 12, 2013

I was being eco-conscious. I'd slammed two mint chocolate Gus on the bike and didn't have anywhere to put the wrappers, so I shoved them under my shorts. Only when I finished Flagstaff's Mountain Man oly tri did I realize why I got so many weird looks on the run.

Note to self: When tucking gel wrappers into shorts, do not place them upside down!